Another win for Black driver

Darrell Wallace Jr. wins second NASCAR race

FROM WIRE REPORTS

Darrell “Bubba’’ Wallace Jr. won his second career victory last Saturday in his 29th career start. He raced to his second career NASCAR Camping World Truck victory, holding off German Quiroga at Gateway Motorsports Park in Madison, Ill.

Darrell Wallace Jr., center, shows off his trophy after his win on Saturday.

Wallace won for the first time at Martinsville (Virginia) Speedway last October.

But his second win didn’t come that easily. He had problems during his first round of pit stops where he lost valuable time.

However, he was determined to get back to the front of the race, which he did.

“This Made In America Toyota Tundra was on a roll tonight,” Wallace Jr. said. “We got into a little trouble the first pit stop, but a little adversity never hurts anybody. We come through. I’m so proud of my guys, they worked their tails off.”

He added, “This place is so cool, so different, here we can actually race and show what we’re about and have fun with it,” Wallace Jr. said. “From the moment I got here, I was a little iffy about it, because I was way off the pace, took some pointers from (Matt) Crafton and figured it out fairly quickly.”

Stayed positive
Wallace remained positive throughout all the complications of the race.

“We were back and forth on the setup, but from the drop of the green flag, we didn’t have the take-off speed, but we had the long-run speed, but we stayed positive about everything and we came out with the victory.”

Wallace took the lead from Quiroga on a late restart after Quiroga tangled with Erik Jones, Wallace’s Kyle Busch Motorsports teammate. Jones bobbled while leading with seven laps left, and Quiroga slammed into the back of Jones’ truck, sending it spinning hard into the inside wall.

“It was wild,” Wallace said. “Such a bummer for Erik.”

The 20-year-old Wallace won last year at Martinsville to join Wendell Scott as the only Black winners on NASCAR’s national level.